Search - Gianluca Cascioli :: Recital

An impressive recital by a young prodigy, and the first reco

Christopher Culver | 10/31/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Italian pianist Gianluca Cascioli is one of the few young virtuosos who have proved themselves with contemporary repertoire. In 1994, at the age of 15, he won first prize in the Umberto Micheli International Piano Competition in Milan. The jury consisted of such prominent modern figures as Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, George Benjamin, Alfons Kontarsky, Maurizio Pollini, and Charles Rosen. The programme was, with the exception of some Beethoven, solely modern. The following year he recorded this recital, which Deutsche Grammophon finally released in 1997.



What made me seek out the disc was the world-premiere recording of Pierre Boulez's "Incises" for solo piano (1994). The great French composer wrote this three and a half minute piece for the Umberto Micheli competition, and consequently it requires superhuman skill. After a slow introduction, the music leapts into fast strides up, down, and all around the keyboard that few pianists could handle. Boulez hadn't written a solo piano piece since his bleep-blooby sonatas of the late 1940s and the 1950s, but here he finally wrote something in his glittering and highly energetic mature style for the piano. It's probably my favourite piece by Boulez, and it serves as the basis for the massive and beautiful "Sur Incises" for three pianos, three harps, and three percussionists (available on a budget DG disc). Unfortunately, in 1999 Boulez went on to expand "Incises" to three times its original length, and the result is quite dull, so this disc is the best place to hear the piece.



The recital begins with three Beethoven pieces. These are "Fantasie" op. 77, "32 Variations on an Original Themes" WoO 80, and "Six Bagatelles" op. 126. I cannot comment much on these, since I don't much care for music of the Classical or Romantic eras. Nonetheless, regardless of my uninterest in the music, I do admire Cascioli's capabilities in meeting its demands.



Cascioli leapts into the modern era with two pieces by Anton Webern, but those expecting the crystalline twelve-tone miniatures that made that composer famous will be surprised. "Movement for Piano" and "Sonatensatz (Rondo) fuer Klavier" date from 1906, when Webern had not yet left behind tradition and was still writing a mix of late Romanticism and Impressionism. These pieces are clearly juvenalia, and best gotten on their own in DG's Complete Webern box. Arnold Schoenberg is represented by his "Fuenf Klavierstuecke" op. 23 (1920-23). The work is mainly representative of his period of free atonality, but the last piece is a lovely little waltz based on a twelve-note theme. I don't know much about Schoenberg's music yet, but I enjoyed this and plan to seek out more.



Cascioli reaches our time with Boulez and with two of Gyorgy Ligeti's already famous Etudes. These are no. 2 "Cordes a vide" and no. 4 "Fanfares", both from Book One. While the performance by Pierre-Laurent Aimard on György Ligeti Edition 3 must be taken as definitive, as the composer supervised the recording, Cascioli's take is fine, and though his performance of the fourth etude is not flawless, he goes at it with much greater speed than in other recordings.



The liner notes cover the Beethoven in detail, but don't tell us much about the modern pieces. There's also a little preface by Boulez explaining Cascioli's rise to fame.



It is a real shame that this disc swiftly fell out of print, as it would otherwise be a must-have for fans of modernism. If you ever find it, by all means snatch it up."